Moira's Moments: January 2007

Monday, January 8, 2007

Recipes
The recipes on the right are from Louise Lennox at Airfield House

Saturday, January 6, 2007

Just rambling......

My 4 year old granddaughter has two older brothers, of 8 and 13 years...she's the real pretty girl and is very girlie about everything except when she's getting her own way from the two boys,,.. She is mad about her 'babies' ...each doll is cared for like a real child and all must have beds and of course quilts! I’m doing a quilt for her bed right now...inspired by traditional scrap quilts - in pinks, lavenders, mauve and purple with panels of hearts and flowers in applique and It will also have a matching headboard quilt and cotton sheets trimmed with the applique. I have all the patchwork and applique done and have only to put it all together and quilt...hopefully done next week!!!
My mother was an avid stitcher...she trained as a tailor and had her own tailoring business for years. When I was little I used to sit beside her and thread her needles and I learned to sew by osmosis...I never remember her actually showing me how to do anything...I just learned! She made all the clothes for the family, did the most amazing embroidery, Irish crochet and lace and in her spare time knitted. I guess I caught the bug young because I remember early memories of sorting her 'stash' and feeling the fabrics and figuring out which ones I liked best. I have done most kinds of needlework except cross stitching and have also dappled in leather work. I paint in watercolours and pastels but mostly love to interpret landscapes into fabric.
It’s my grandson who I think will become the crafty person in the family…he loves the quilts and fabrics…and is a fantastic artist.

Thursday, January 4, 2007

Let me introduce myself...

Hello!
I guess I'd better introduce myself first!...
I work as an Environmental Educationalist which means I try to change the attitudes and actions of children, adults, businesses, etc about environmental issues such as waste management, resource efficiency, energy. I work with a local authority and in general I love my job....but it doesn't leave a lot of time for my hobbies! I paint - watercolour and pastels, I quilt and I am interested in local history and especially how towns and villages developed. (I'm really a geographer and studied geography and environmental management as a mature student in the '90s). I also like to do photography and surf the net...Did I mention reading? love to read as well ...usually I read a novel, then something real like a biography then a novel...plus lots of quilting magazines.
I've decided to blog because I love quilting and I'd really like to talk with other quilters. I've been sewing all my life it seems (my mother was a tailor and I learned at her knee) and until the last year or so only thought of sewing as making clothes, curtains or craft items ...but then I had the urge to use fabric as the medium for the pictures that I was painting...especially what I like to think of as close up landscapes... e.g. a meadow with closeups in the foreground of daisies...that kind of thing. I am currently going to local classes so that I can meet other quilters and learn techniques...most of my quilts are still in my head!! I'm loving it as I just adore fabric and sewing. I also collect vintage and antique sewing machines....Why do all my hobbies involve collecting 'stuff' and as a good environmentalist, I'm never willing to throw anything away in case it might be useful someday...I do have a lot of junk!
By the way I'm in my fifty-fifth year, married to the love of my life and soulmate and have one son who has provided us with three gorgeous grandchildren.

My favorite authors are JoAnne Harris (also love her cook books), Tracey Chevalier, V.S.Naipal, Vikram Seth....and lots more.

I am currently working on a fairly traditional quilt for my granddaughter's bed...plus matching quilt for her headboard as she bangs her head all the time...and matching bedlinen for her 'babies'...she is doll mad and her 'babies' must be kept in the loop at all times. I also have an enormous Meadow that I am working on...a watercolour background with appliqued meadow flowers and leaves...lots of work to do yet.

Almond/Cherry Cakes

200 grams glace cherries 250 grams self raising flour 225 grams softened butter 175 grams caster sugar 3 large eggs beaten 1-3 teaspoons almond essence 100 grams ground almonds 6 tablespoons of milk Note there are 545 grams in one lb. Wash cherries and cut in half, dry and toss in a little flour. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Gradually add in beaten eggs and almond essence. Gently fold in the flour and ground almonds. Fold in cherries and then the milk. Spoon mix into small cake tins. Bake for 30 minutes at 170 degrees. Decorate with royal icing.

Gingerbread

4oz plain flour 1/2 teaspoon bread soda 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice 2oz unsalted butter chilled and diced 2 oz black treacle 2oz golden syrup 2 oz light Muscavado sugar 5 fl oz milk 1 egg yolk heat oven to 180 degrees. Sift all dry ingredients together, rub butter with fingertips until resembles fine breadcrumbs. Melt treacle, syrup, sugar and milk over low heat stirring all the time. Whisk the milk mixture into dry ingredients. Add egg yol. Mixture should be like a thin batter. Line a one lb loaf tin with baking parchment and pour in the cake mixture. Bake for 20 -40 mins.

A little history

This part of the blog spot is to be dedicated to noting the family history....If I do a little bit every day maybe I might get it all done.
My mothers side
My mother was born Josephine Jennette (yes...that's the surname) on 19th March 1919. Her father was William Jennette who was born in Dublin and his father was from near Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland. His family once owned a circus called Jennettes Circus which eventually became what I have known as Cullens Fun Fair. My grandfather's father was a terrible drinker. He left his wife and my grandfather and his sister Angela on a drinking bout, he went to America and came back sober 16 years after he left. The result was my grand uncle Paddy. The family were comfortably off until my great grandfather had drunk and gambled everything including the Red Branch Hotel in D'Olier St in Dublin which he lost in a poker game. My great grandmother moved to Raharney, Co Westmeath with the young William and Angela. She worked doing washing to keep them together and even managed to give my grandfather an education in secondary school up to about age 16. Angela as an adult became the black sheep of the family and lost contact with her brothers. Uncle Paddy found her death notice when she died .
My Granny was Mary Farelly from Raharney, her mothers maiden name was D'arcy and that family had been there since Norman times. I know very little about the family. Granny worked in service in the local big house and left when she married at 26 to my Grandad who was 19. She told me once that she wore a green velvet dress for her wedding day. Granny and Grandad were related in some way because Granny said that the priest who married them had to check to see if they could marry because they were cousins.
My mother was the eldest in the family. There were eight children in all....Rose born 1921, Nan, 1923, Philomena, 1927, Billy,1926, Pat, Michael and Jimmy (?1939).

My Grandfather went to England sometime in the mid 1920's to work, the rest of the famly joined him sometime before aunt Phil was born. All the others in the family were born in England. They lived mainly in Coventry and during the war my mother was for much of the time the only one with a job. She had a variety of these including working in a hosiery factory and working as a shop girl in a Co-op shop. They were badly affected by the bombing during the war and it made my mother terrified of thunderstorms for the remainder of her life. My mother thought she had a vocation to become a nun and was on retreat with the Poor Clares when war was declared in 1939. Sometime before the family left England in 1945 my mother began apprenticeship to become a tailor. She continued this training with a tailor in Ballivor, Co Meath. The family bought a house in Craddenstown, Raharney, Co. Westmeath. The house was built sometime in the 1760s and had originally been a schoohhouse which was evidenced by the fact that the entire upstairs was partitioned by wooden panelled walls. My mother emigrated to America (sponsored by her Aunt Delia my granny's sister) in 1947. She worked as a housekeeper until she married my fatjer in 1949. I found out after her death that my father had been divorced when my mother married him, which was a terrible thing in those days. My mother had a son born in 1949 but he died as an infant. I was born in 1952 and my sister in 1954. We lived at 6151 West Court Street, Flint Michigan. The house was a bungalow on a large site. We had a huge orchard. At that time the area was still mainly farmland. Across the road from us was a farm owned by a Polish emmigrant family called Pedresky. They were an old couple and Mrs Pedresky made her own butter and could barely speak any English. On one side of us was the Perez family who were Mexican and they had a basement which we evacuated to in time of tornado warnings - the Perez's, the Pedreskys and us. On the other side of us were fields and across the field almost out of site was a church of some sort.

Moira's Moments

Monday, January 8, 2007

Saturday, January 6, 2007

Just rambling......

Thursday, January 4, 2007

Let me introduce myself...

Poppies and Daisies

Almond/Cherry Cakes

Gingerbread

Fantastic Fushia

The Lads

French Lavender

Blog Archive

A little history